META-STATES AND META-COGNITION

“One difference between a competent performer and a master in any field is that the master can go back and tell you exactly what it is that he has just done, and how he did it. Masters have unconscious competence and the ability to make the competence explicit. This last skill is referred to as meta-cognition.” Introducing Neuro-Linguistic Programming, O’Connor and Seymour, 1990, page 198

Once upon a time I used to travel to Houston Texas to present Meta-States. In fact, it was in Houston Texas, at the NLP Center that I presented and certified the very first “Meta-States Training.” That was 1996. Thereafter I worked with Edit Rodas-Carroll, who was the NLP Trainer and Director of the NLP Center there in Houston, and began traveling to Houston the first weekend of each month to present the NLP Master Practitioner, and from time to time various Meta-State Trainings.

One time I met with some people from the Medical Research department at Baylor University. We met at a restaurant near the University and when one of the researchers joined us later that evening, someone introduced me as the developer of the Meta-States Model. He didn’t know anything about the model and so asked about it. When I mentioned that it was a model about the special kind of consciousness unique to we humans, self-reflexive consciousness, his next statement was as telling as it was arrogant.

“Oh you mean meta-cognition! Yeah, that can be interesting but most of it is pretty boring stuff.”

Now at that time, I was still mapping out lots of new things about the Meta-States Model, and still a novice to the working of frames, at least I was able to hear a limiting frame when I heard one like that. I also knew that “Whoever sets the frame controls the game” even though I had not formulated in that succinct line at that time. So I responded: “So are you telling me that all you know about meta-cognition bores you? This is great! You are going to be so excited when you find out all that has been recently discovered about what has gone under the title of ‘meta-cognition.’”

I then read the stunned silence that followed as indicating that he didn’t expect that response and had not prepared himself for the frame war that he initiated. So with his silence, I began talking about the practical use of meta-cognition for creating the frames of mind to set a person free to explore the processes of excellence and mastery.

Yes, a meta-state as a state-about-a-state is an aspect of meta-cognition. But if you go study the field of meta-cognition, you will find that much of it does seem to be pretty sterile. That was my first impression when I studied Meta-Cognition. What I first read focused mostly, the field has

focused on memory and learning. Memory because the ability to manage your mind to remember things is a function of your meta-cognition as you decide what to remember, how to remember, and why to remember something. Then I found other writers and key thinkers in the field of Meta-Cognition who were anything but boring. Later, in fact, I included them in the book, Meta-States (2007).

Joseph O’Connor and John Seymour, in their excellent book introducing NLP, are among the very few in NLKP who even mention meta-cognition. They write about meta-cognition as an epistemology— that is, a strategy for “learning to learn,” and a strategy for “knowing what you know” (epistemology): “Gregory Bateson described NLP as the first systematic approach to learning to learn; it is the first applied epistemology.” (Introducing NLP, p. 205)

That dinner with wine and fish in Houston was the first time that someone used “meta-cognition” as a way to dismiss the importance of the Meta-States Model, but it was not the last time. Just last week a Psychologist called to ask about the Coaching Boot Camp, Coaching Mastery, that we are conducting here in Colorado this July. I couldn’t tell if he was truly interested or just wanted to kill some time because a client didn’t show. The other possibility is that he has a mis- matching meta-program which was in full access when we talked!

Anyway we talked and after sharing information about the meta-levels and Meta-States, he responded with the old line that I had not heard in years, “Oh that’s meta-cognition, I know all about that!” Of course, I recognized that as a come-on, an invitation to do battle. He obviously wanted me to “convince” him that he should invest in Meta-Coaching. I say obviously because he told me that that is what he wanted!

True enough, he didn’t tell me that immediately. That only came after I provoked him. And I did that because, over the years, I have learned to not try to convince people of things! If a person doesn’t want to be convinced, the person won’t be. If the person doesn’t want to change, he won’t be. That’s why I said to my caller, “Sounds like you already know everything you want to know about meta-cognition. So what would you like to know?” So he said, “Convince me that this is important and I should learn this!”

“So let me get this straight, you want me to spend time convincing you that the meta-levels are important?” I asked matching the words he used. “Yes,” he said and then he began making his argument that there were more things he wanted to learn about meta-cognition. “Really?” I said with a tone of incredulity. “Like what? What is there about meta-cognition that you don’t know and want to learn?” He didn’t know! I guess that caught him off guard. Or perhaps it surprised him that I had no need to convince him or change his mind or sell him anything.

How does meta-cognition relate to NLP and to Meta-States? Well, it relates because that’s what NLP and Meta-States are about— they are meta-models about how we humans create our models. With meta-cognition, you move to the thoughts (cognitions) that you have about your thoughts. So whatever you are thinking— whether it is about learning, remembering,

understanding, being convinced, etc.—the higher level thoughts about that are your meta- cognitions. They make up your conceptual frames by which you interpret things as you do. Obviously, that makes them highly influential and powerful. And that’s why meta-programs are important, why meta-modalities (sub-modalities) are important, as are values, beliefs, understandings, concepts, etc. And the Meta-States Model explains how you create these higher- level (meta) frameworks. And when you know that, you know how to create change at a much higher level for more systemic change than just changing a primarily level thought. There’s much more to say about all of this, so I’ll do that next week.